The Happy Place 5: Queer BIPOC main characters!
The Happy Place 5 is a monthly series where a few friends and I post 5 of our favorites books for a certain topic or theme. The name is from a Discord group that I am a part of. We created the space to have a positive environment for a handful of close friends. All of us are bookworms, and many of us are bookstagrammers and bloggers. So we decided to start a blog post series together! I’ll link my friends blogs and posts for this month’s topic at the end of this post.
Happy June and happy Pride month! Naturally we had to celebrate queer voices in the book community this month. We also chose to highlight BIPOC characters as well, since we would like to uplift those stories! I’ve read quite a few, but there are some that I wanted to highlight that I haven’t read yet. There are soooo many queer BIPOC stories on my TBR and I’m a little overwhelmed haha. I just want to read them all right now!!! But sadly I can only really read one book at a time haha. But anyway!!! Here are my picks. The first three are ones I’ve read, and the last two are to be read!
Burning Roses
Retellings, am I right? I mean, you know me. You know I love them. So there was a pretty high chance I would love this novella. Especially given that I loved the authors full length sci-fi novel, Zero Sum Game. But yeah, this little novella is amazing. It mixes European fairytales with Chinese mythology in such a wonderful way. One of the main characters is Hou Yi from Chinese myths, and the other is Rosa, who is essentially Red Riding Hood. The two women are Chinese and Latina respectively. I loved reading their story, and learning about their pasts through the novella. They are both sapphic, and I believe one of them is trans as well. It was just beautiful and I am really hoping for more novellas like this.
Honey Girl
I wrote a review for this book (find it here) because I just loved it SO MUCH. It hit me really hard and was so incredibly relatable for me. The main character is a Black lesbian woman who has just finished her PhD in astrophysics. She is dealing with depression and anxiety and burnout and wondering what to do after finishing, and I just. I feel all of the same things (though I am neither Black nor lesbian). Go read my review for more of my thoughts on it, but wow. I thought it was brilliant.
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain
If you’ve followed me for a bit, you probably have seen my review for this one. If you haven’t, you can read it here. This is the second novella that follows the main character Chih, who is a cleric and story recorder. The world is Asian inspired, and it’s beautiful. So many of the characters are sapphic, including the people in the stories that Chih is recording. And Chih is nonbinary! I love seeing queer characters as the norm in books. Nghi Vo’s writing is absolutely stunning. I highly recommend this novella, and the first novella that follows Chih (The Empress of Salt and Fortune, find my review here).
Iron Widow
This damn book y’all. I have been SO excited for it since it was announced. It was pitched as like Pacific Rim, but Chinese inspired, and also with polyamory. In young adult fiction?? YES GIVE IT TO ME. Penguin Teen Canada is amazing and sent me an ARC, and I can’t WAIT to get to it. Here is the synopsis from Goodreads so I can make you all add it hehehe.
“The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.
When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.
To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.“
The Unbroken
This book features a Black lesbian protagonist, is set in a North African inspired nation, deals with colonization, is a fantasy novel, and do I need to say more?? I mean I’m sold. Though as I said, I haven’t read it yet haha. But I’m stoked to!! Here’s the Goodreads synopsis.
“Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought.
Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet’s edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne.
Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren’t for sale.“
Have you read any of these, or are they on your TBR? And what queer BIPOC books would you recommend?
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